Things to Come:

History can be a great teacher … if only we put the right questions to it. At a moment when the frontiers of the documentary form continue to shift, driven as much by changes in technological possibility, user expectation, and media infrastructure, history might seem to provide a strange ally.

The challenges posed by such developments as live documentary, algorithmic narratives and Oculus Rift, to name but a few, seem to have few precedents. And yet, or so this talk will argue, we might benefit by taking a closer look at the dialogue between past and future, and seeing what lessons can be learned.